Learn graphic design with the help of 10 practical design books

Learning graphic design has never been so easy as it is today. And because practice makes perfect, these 10 books will help you shape you design perspective with different exercices. Are you in?

Graphic Style Lab: Develop Your Own Style with 50 Hands-On Exercises

Learn graphic design with the help of 10 practical design books – Graphic Style Lab: Develop Your Own Style with 50 Hands-On Exercises
Graphic Style Lab is a lively and playful approach to discovering different design styles. This guidebook is full of experimental design projects that cover the distinctions between a personal and universal style, historical and contemporary style, one-of-a kind styles. You’ll also discover how lettering, type and typography often define style.

Playing with Type is a hands-on, playful approach to learning type application and principles. This engaging guide begins with an introduction to the philosophy of learning through the process of play. Along with a series of experimental design projects with an emphasis on type, the author provides designers with a “toolkit” of ideas and skills developed through the process of play.

Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills

Within Creative Workshop, you’ll find 80 creative challenges that will help you achieve a breadth of stronger design solutions, in various media, within any set time period. Exercises range from creating a typeface in an hour to designing a paper robot in an afternoon to designing web pages and other interactive experiences. Each exercise includes compelling visual solutions from other designers and background stories to help you increase your capacity to innovate.

This book challenges you to go against your default ways of thinking in order to write, design, and build something extraordinary. Featuring more than 100 challenges, exercises, and prompts, each page guides you as you push past the way you normally see the world and uncover all-new possibilities and ideas. The Creativity Challenge teaches you that you already have immense creative potential in you–you just need to tap into it.

The ultimate tool for designers and creatives looking to tap into the trend of hand-drawn lettering, this workbook features step-by-step lessons on a range of styles plus more than 120 practice pages, making it the ideal place to learn and perfect this in-demand design skill.

The Complete Book of Chalk Lettering: Create and Develop Your Own Style

In over 60 lessons, learn the ABCs of lettering (literally) and basic styles: serif, sans serif, and script. Next, how to lay out a design, combine various styles into one cohesive piece, add shadows and dimension. Master more advanced letter styles, from faceted to ribbon to “vintage circus.” Use banners, borders, flourishes. And finally, 12 projects to show off your newfound skills: including a Winter Wonderland Snow Globe; a smartphone-themed birthday card to text friends and family; a one-of-a-kind party invitation to create, photograph, and mail; and a bake sale sign guaranteed to put everyone who sees it in the mood for a cupcake!

Graphic Design Thinking (Design Briefs)

Creativity is more than an inborn talent; it is a hard-earned skill, and like any other skill, it improves with practice. Graphic Design Thinking: How to Define Problems, Get Ideas, and Create Form explores a variety of informal techniques ranging from quick, seat-of-the-pants approaches to more formal research methods for stimulating fresh thinking, and ultimately arriving at compelling and viable solutions. In the style with which author Ellen has come to been known hands-on, up-close approach to instructional design writing brainstorming techniques are grouped around the three basic phases of the design process: defining the problem, inventing ideas, and creating form. Creative research methods include focus groups, interviewing, brand mapping, and co-design. Each method is explained with a brief narrative text followed by a variety of visual demonstrations and case studies.

Creativity Workout: 62 Exercises to Unlock Your Most Creative Ideas

Creativity was once thought to be a talent bestowed upon a lucky few. Today it is understood as a skill that we can all learn, develop and apply. And in today’s economy–with information available to everyone and support services outsourced overseas–creativity is the most valuable asset you can possess and the best way to get ahead.
Learn to unlock these abilities with Creativity Workout. In 62 exercises designed by Edward de Bono, the world’s leading creativity expert, you’ll discover how to tap into your most original thinking. Each exercise is fun and simple and will get you in the creative state of mind necessary to think yourself to success.

Playing with Sketches: 50 Creative Exercises for Designers and Artists

Playing with Sketches is a hands-on, fun approach to exploring drawing principles. Beginning with an introduction to the philosophy of learning through the process of play, this book brings you through a series of basic warm-up exercises that can be combined with later projects. Then you’ll move quickly on to more challenging and engaging exercises, including word games, dimensional shapes, and inventive sketchbooks and letterforms, eventually creating a “toolkit” of ideas and skills developed through the process of play. This book features creative, adaptable ideas, and numerous examples of designers and artists responses to each exercise, giving you a peek into their way of thinking and seeing.

I am a web and graphic designer, with a background in marketing, interested in visual communication and more.
I created wabbaly.com to share my point of view on this visual world. You can keep up with me on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.